Maybe not. Does it matter? Steve Jobs, brilliant though he was, has been dead for a while now, and shows every indication of staying that way into the indefinite future. While that doesn't necessarily mean he has been unable to stay up on the last few years' worth of change and innovation in the mobile space, it does mean that whatever unique insights he's been able to derive from same are not in a place where they can do Apple's designers and engineers much good.

He wouldn't have refused them, but these would have been filler items or unannounced tweaks that people just discover as they use the product.

I'm not surprised we're seeing diminishing returns on smart phone UX though...

No, you aren't the only one. In my opinion, Apple has gone from a mixed of innovation + reaction + improved quality to mainly just reaction.

Steve was fantastic at saying no. He said no to the app store multiple times. He said no to almost everything that ended up being Apple staples. I'm not sure it's fair to give him so much credit.

Steve Jobs refused a lot of things that he later back peddled on, and released many things that failed.

Yeah, I don't think that all that junk added to Messages would have been added under Steve Jobs. Not that I think that's a bad thing, but it's definitely a notable departure away from clean and simple and minimal to something that is much, much more complicated and glitzy.

Difference was how Steve sold it vs the two presenting iMessage today